Forbes ranked NFL's best fans, Cowboys #7

According to Forbes, market researchers Nielsen Scarborough found that "84 percent of adults in Green Bay are Packers fans, identified as such having watched, attended, and/or listened to the team’s games this past year." You can't find 84 percent of people in most communities to agree that water is wet, much less on a football team. Now, here's where you say that Packers fans are so into the team because there's nothing else to do in Northeast Wisconsin, and that's what Forbes did:

"It seems little else goes on there to compete for their attention, and anything that does revolves around the team," Forbes wrote.

They've totally glossed over deer hunting and ice fishing and cheese curd and 22-inch kielbasaeating, but that's fine. The Packers are indisputably the NFL's top fans, and I'm sure they're proud to be recognized as such.

84% of Green Bay can fit into Lambeau. It's far closer to a college town than it is a city with a professional sports team. This is comparable to finding out that almost all of Norman, OK are Sooner fans.

It's a small place located a long way from any major metropolitan area. It's miserably cold and has no particular drawing power for people from other states. Considering the only uptick in the population is probably spoken for by the number of children born there, the team would have relocated decades ago if the local support wasn't so absurdly high.

There isn't much in Green Bay other than the Packers to keep the population from banging their heads on the wall out of sheer frustration to find anything else worthwhile to do. Their situation isn't really comparable to practically any NFL team in any other area in sports. That 84% in Green Bay would likely be a far less percentage in practically any other city in professional sports. The fact that Dallas has attended games and paid attention to their team despite their long abstinance from winning is remarkable.

84% of Green Bay can fit into Lambeau. It's far closer to a college town than it is a city with a professional sports team. This is comparable to finding out that almost all of Norman, OK are Sooner fans.

It's a small place located a long way from any major metropolitan area. It's miserably cold and has no particular drawing power for people from other states. Considering the only uptick in the population is probably spoken for by the number of children born there, the team would have relocated decades ago if the local support wasn't so absurdly high.

Yep, It all depends on the criteria that is used to rank fans. Don't the Cowboys lead in merchandise sales?

Do most cities outside of NYC have 3 sports talk radio stations that spend a majority of their time reporting on the local football team?

I know of about 5 Cowboys message boards. I wonder if it's like that with other teams.

On the flip side, the passion of fans at games is not that good in Dallas as compared to the nut jobs in some cities.

Yep me too. Pittsburgh is a notoriously myopic city. Their televisions are consistently low for other sporting events that don't involve their teams and they seem to be in a bubble. Their fans are appalled that Bell and Blount played last night - it's not the Steeler way, they say. Better get used to it.

Our ranking is based on five criteria: stadium attendance (a combination of consecutive sell-outs and average percentage of season stadium capacity), television ratings (as provided by Nielsen), merchandise sales (per NFLShop.com), social media reach (a combination of Facebook likes and Twitter followers based on the team’s metro area population), and fan club presence (based on the active number found online). The latter two are weighted less than the former three elements in our finally ranking.

Well golly gee willikers Forbes. What's the deal with "Fan Club Rank" and "Hometown Crowd Rank?" I wonder why Fan Club Rank was used two years ago and has been subsequently replaced with Hometown Crowd Rank? And what exactly goes into computing Hometown Crowd Rank when stadium attendance is made a separate datum? Hmm. Wait. What's that smell..? Limburger..?

It kinda sorta depends what criteria you're looking for for your rankings. In the case of Dallas, or the Steelers for that matter, there certainly are a large number of fans, anyway. I don't think that should be the measure, though. I'm partial to the fans of downtrodden organizations who still show up enthusiastically after years of disappointment. Cleveland, maybe, or Kansas City would seem to be pretty good examples. Saints fans are a great example, though that team is good right now. They were awful for years and still had people dancing in the streets.

Well golly gee willikers Forbes. What's the deal with "Fan Club Rank" and "Hometown Crowd Rank?" I wonder why Fan Club Rank was used two years ago and has been subsequently replaced with Hometown Crowd Rank? And what exactly goes into computing Hometown Crowd Rank when stadium attendance is made a separate datum? Hmm. Wait. What's that smell..? Limburger..?

Well, there we go. Thanks.

On a side note, interesting that Dallas was 8 in television rank in 2012. That's lower than I'd ever have expected given the ratings numbers I've seen previously.

It kinda sorta depends what criteria you're looking for for your rankings. In the case of Dallas, or the Steelers for that matter, there certainly are a large number of fans, anyway. I don't think that should be the measure, though. I'm partial to the fans of downtrodden organizations who still show up enthusiastically after years of disappointment. Cleveland, maybe, or Kansas City would seem to be pretty good examples. Saints fans are a great example, though that team is good right now. They were awful for years and still had people dancing in the streets.

With bags over their heads.

And the part about downtrodden fans who keep showing up...well, Cowboys fans could be considered a part of that group since 8-8 is akin to 0-16 to a lot of folks around here.

I would base it on the attending stadium fans, mostly.
Here's my list:

GB - Okay, the town owns the team...Then there's the Lombardi mystique (only because Landry gave Vince his def. playbook)
They have a lot of fans around the country as well.
Pit. - I went to Three Rivers Stadium once... snow swirling around... the night before we went out and everyone was wearing
black and gold.... EVERYONE!.... also probably the most well-traveled fan base.
KC - It's an outdoor stadium and loud as hell... an older stadium that didn't have the money backing like the next team on the list.
Also, love how the fans are college-like with the sea of red... always looks like a tough place to play while I'm sitting on my couch.
Sea. - Gotta hand it to them... the old Kingdome was loud... they kept that as a design key while building the outdoor stadium.
Balt. - Now, I've been to several games here including Ray Lewis' last game. (playoff win over Indy)... the fans are loud and intense...
plus a true Ravens fan absolutely despises the Redskins and their fans... that alone is enough for this list.

Okay, this got windy so I'm wrapping it up... Honorable mention goes to Chicago and Denver... also, if Buffalo and Oakland ever
put a winner back on the field, you'd see their fans mentioned in this way.

I would love to put Dallas on this list but everyone is too mesmerized by that huge screen above the field... It reminds me of one of
those Batman movies where the Riddler makes everyone stare into the TV.

As for my thoughts on this, I posted the other day in the other section of the forum that I thought Cleveland belonged at or near the top of this list.

Yeah. Not sure how demoralized the last few years have made them, but my experience with them, they were really great fans, overall. Loyal. They knew the team stunk, but they loved Browns football, anyway.